Diversity and Integration: Sticks, Stones AND Words CAN Hurt Me

The buzzword for the hour...for the year...for the decade...since the 70's...has failed. That word is DIVERSITY.

Like the word INTEGRATION, a word that has been falsely promised since the 1950's, the word "diversity" is flung around people of color like a bandaid made to look like a lifeboat. These words are neither a band aid nor a lifeboat. The false implementation of both "diversity" and "integration" begins with the definition of the words. Once the true definition of the word is articulated, it becomes clear, sadly clear, that we've never had one and we shouldn't want the other.

Integration

Since the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, the idea of "separate but equal" plagued the American south as a working social construct to keep the races from mixing. The "separate but equal" mandate, or the Jim Crow South, was not a society of equality for black people. Black citizens had ALL of the separation and NONE of the equality. The Civil Rights Movement was born. It was created on the mission of INTEGRATION. But what IS integration?

The signs hanging over drinking fountains were but one example of the clear, cut and dry, rule of the south: "Whites Only" and "Coloreds Only". Despite what the signs suggested, white people were permitted to go anywhere they chose to go. Black people were not. So began the fight to balance the scale and change the "whites only" spaces into places everyone would be permitted to go. Here's the flaw: the power of change was still in the hands of the white establishment because NO ONE was fighting for the integration of black spaces. During the Civil Rights Movement, we had black owned businesses. We had black run schools. We had establishments that depended on a black community eager to "integrate". Once the Civil Right Act was passed in 1964, declaring all public spaces open to all people, black southerns sent their children to white schools; shopped in white stores and ate at white lunch counters. White children, however, weren't sent to black schools; white people were not patrons of black businesses; and while on occasion ate of our ribs, greens, fried chicken and sweet potato pie, they did not value our arts be they culinary, fine or performing, leaving many of the black institutions to close their doors.

America did NOT integrate. It DE-SEGREGATED. Black and white life did not mix equally and balanced in the America. Black existence mixed into a white social construct and this is why we are having the problems of today: Black Americans are permitted to move a little more freely in a "Whites Only" society. Integration turned out to be a black person, moving into a new apartment of all white walls where upon moving in, they were told they can not change the color of the walls, nor can they break them down. If at anytime they feel constricted or limited by the boundaries of these walls, not a matter. They wanted this and this is now where they live. The walls will always be up and the walls will always be white.

TRUE integration would have been the equal shift on both sides into both ways of life. TRUE integration would have been the allocation of resources and funds to build on the black establishments so whites could integrate into the black culture as well as the reverse. Then VALUE would have been realized and preserved in both the black and white societal construct. But that never happened.

If we look at the images from the 1950's-1970's, the young people screaming "Niggers Go Home" and "Stop Integration" are now adults...the elders.

They are now presidents and principals of schools, colleges, and universities. They are politicians and community leaders. They are police officers and business owners. Some of these people have come to see the value of equality among the races but many have not. Black lives became mixed into the social construct of white people, but white lives did not integrate into the lives of black people.

We did not integrate. We de-segregated.

Diversity

So...de-segregation took place in America, giving millions of black people the hope that life in America will be better. What wasn't taken into account was the purposed discrimination demonstrated by white citizens who did not agree with the changing times.

The 1970's and 80's saw an increase in black attendance in predominately white colleges and universities (currently referred to as PWI's) as historically black colleges and universities (HBCU's) were looked upon as relics of a segregated American past. A TRUE integration would have been a balance of evolution for both PWI's and HBCU's...but there was no wave of white folks attending Howard or Hampton in the same way they attended Harvard. Like the businesses forced to close their doors as a result of de-segregation, many HBCU's fell victim to low attendance and apathy in the years after the Civil Rights Movement. Going to school with white kids in THEIR institutions gave an entire generation of young black people the idea that they could content and compete in the work force and politics as well. When the reality that white cis men still ran the show set in (i.e. qualified people of color were overlooked for promotion or after a job interview resulted in a less qualified white man getting the job) legislation was put into place to attempt to "level the playing field": Affirmative Action.

According to Merriam- Webster dictionary, Affirmative Action is "the practice of improving the educational and job opportunities of members of groups that have not been treated fairly in the past because of their race, sex, etc. It is an active effort to improve the employment or educational opportunities of members of minority groups and women; an effort to promote the rights or progress of other disadvantaged persons." When researching further, the term "positive discrimination" helped define Affirmative Action in the dictionary AND on Google...

...and that's problematic as 'positive discrimination' is an oxymoron. Discrimination is not ever positive, and yet this is how the need to balance opportunity for a successful life in America has been seen through the eyes of cis white men who feel their position of power has been infringed upon. They feel THEY are now being discriminated against and loosing opportunity in the name of equality...and DIVERSITY.

In an effort to make sure a company or school were compliant with the mandate of equal opportunity for all, regardless of race, gender and a list of other attributes, quotas were established and "DIVERSITY" was born. These institutions were then able to say, "we have a diverse staff" or "we have a diverse student body" because in a school of 20,000 students enrolled, 5% are black. That's 1000 black people at a school where 20x that number are white. That's "diverse" but no where near "balance" or "equal".

"Diversity" defines the minimal inclusion of the oppressed so the oppressor can say he did his part, but not lose his position of power and privilege. "Diversity" SHOULD be a great thing. The mixing of a variety of equal parts should bring about a dynamic exchange and co-existence. But we have seen time and time again, Americans do not exist that way. "Diversity" has come to mean that in a manner that seems forced, white spaces must include the minimal amount of black/latino/asian presence as to not be identified as an EXCLUSIVELY white space...or cis male spaces that tolerate a minimal amount of cis women/gay/lesbian/transgender presence. "Diversity", within a racial context as it exist in schools and work places today, has come to represent exerting the least effort to resolving racial discrimination issues by maintaining a quota rather than implementing infrastructure changes that creates balance. ‪"Diversity‬" does not mean equal. "Diversity" does not mean balance. You can have a "diverse" staff of managers but will they be paid the same wage for the same work? You can have a "diverse" student body at a school, but will they receive the same experience, same access to leadership and resources? You can have a diverse collective of neighborhoods in your city, but will they all be afforded the same financial resources, the same protection by (or even from) the police, will their schools have a balance of resources so that no matter where a child goes to school, they will have an equal opportunity for success..no matter who they are? Black Americans do not want "DIVERSITY". We want CHANGE.

CHANGE

What we are seeing all over America, most recently at the University of Missouri, is a younger generation of Black Americans understanding "integration" and "diversity" are matters of semantic and not matters of practice for equality nor justice. The moment the school's former president, Timothy Wolfe, said he wanted to implement "diversity and inclusion" programs, they knew he had to go. The problems at the University of Missouri, like at most, if not all PWI's...America in general...is that diversity and inclusion training/programs aren't designed to address balance and equality. They are designed to address tolerance. Young Black Americans are demonstrating that their presences in ANY space will not be simply "tolerated". You "tolerate" an inconvenience. Black lives are not an inconvenience on America. The lives of Black Americans will be respected. The lives of Black Americans will be honored. The lives of Black American youths in schools will be a reflection of their scholarship and not a mere math equation. THIS is what is meant by #BlackLivesMatter. The value of Black Lives is more than the treatment of Black Lives in America.

Black America once fought for Integration...lost...and were "de-segregated".

Black America once fought for Diversity...lost...and were "tolerated".
Black America is now fighting for a new America. As these young people call upon each other using the tools at their disposal (social media outlets), participating in old school marches and walk out and new school cyber calls to action and hashtag activism; to create the change they want to see in the country they call home. The change is coming.
A change in politics.
A change in economics.
A change in education.
A change in power.
A change in America.

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